“So things just get stranger,” Bailee said, shifting the projection. “Two transport trucks, unmarked, last seen en route to a Bolivian forensic dig site near the Verde perimeter.”
The image flickered to still aerial drone footage showing the vehicles parked at an angle on a jungle road, one door ajar.
“No visible damage to the vehicles. Supplies untouched. Communications gear still functional, but no one used it.” She paused, letting that land.
Zorro leaned forward. “Ambush?”
“Clever targeted ambush all with a message,” Bailee’s eyes gleamed. “Everyone inside was gone. No blood. No drag marks. No prints. No thermal signatures. Just… silence.”
Bear felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. They didn’t run. They didn’t fight. They didn’t even leave a footprint.
Blitz said softly, “Who you going to call?”
Buck replied just as softly. “Tactical ghostbusters.”
There was a soft wave of amusement through the room. Even the FBI guy cracked a smile.
Bailee nodded. “Locals say the Whispering Earth took them.” She leaned her hands flat on the table, close enough for him to feel her heat. “There’s already talk. That the dead rose from the caves and claimed the living. That the women are calling others to join them.”
Joker shifted, his LT unaffected, skepticism in his sharp eyes. “Ghost stories?”
“That’s what they want the locals to think.” Her voice dropped into retribution. “That might be convincing to them, but not to me.” Her jaw flexed, and her eyes flashed blue fire. “They took the bones, too. That’s a message directly to us. Get out and stay out.”
Bear shifted, his sense of justice curled tight.
Bear broke his silence. “What if the cartel wants to keep the locals away?”
All eyes turned to him.
He met Bailee’s gaze, then looked to the team. “Makes sense they’re using the myth to protect their ground, using Indigenous girls to pose as ghosts to scare people off.”
Professor let out a low breath. “Shit. An elaborate ruse to keep superstitious tribes in the area away from the caves so they can move their illegal contraband without witnesses.” His eyes narrowed. “They’re abducting our Native women, dressing them like wraiths.”
“Psychological warfare,” Zorro muttered. “Oldest trick in the book.”
The FBI liaison cleared his throat. “We're working that angle. I’ve got a cultural anthropologist reviewing the markings. But we’re also still processing the remains previously found at the excavation site where the forensic team was last seen.”
He reached into his folder and slid a printed photo across the table.
Bailee took it, brows drawn, then went still. “This is…Lakota. I don’t recognize it. Bear?”
He froze and his chest locked. He rose, took the photo gently from her hand. Even dirty, the silver inlay tarnished, Bear would know this necklace. A black and white Paint horse made with onyx and white buffalo stone. He stumbled back, Bailee immediately there, helping him back into his chair. Everything else in the room disappeared.
Grief swamped him, each year that his sister had been missing weighed on him like a layer of heavy concrete. He couldn’t breathe as he absorbed the cold, hard facts. The bones. He closed his eyes, his breath rushing out. “No,” he said softly, his voice breaking. Zorro was there, his hand on his shoulder.
“Brother?” His voice was just as broken as Bear’s. Bailee’s presence, his brothers around him helped, but the blow was so devastating, he couldn’t breathe. Ayla, his sweet sister, was gone. Her death at the hands of these monsters was almost more than he could bear. Twelve years of life and she had been snatched from them.
He swallowed back tears at the thought of delivering this news to his family, Than, his mom, Grandfather Ray.
He groaned softly. His voice, when it came, was low and flat. “My grandfather made this. For Ayla. She was horse-crazy, and she loved our Paint, Cha?té Skúya. She wore it the day she disappeared.”
No one moved.
Flint whined softly beside him.
Bailee reached for him, her hand sliding over his back, grounding him.
Zorro stepped closer too, his voice quiet. “Could it have been traded? Picked up somehow?”
